


Tiramisu

by tzigane, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Series: Collations [11]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Episode Remix, M/M, We blew Greg up and haven't fixed him yet, We sort of love blowing Greg up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-17 21:57:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21600400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tzigane/pseuds/tzigane, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: What the hell was that? It smelled like burning plastic, which probably meant the hot plate under the fume hood. That couldn't be good. Sometimes it got left on, and that smell was definitely bad. It got stronger the closer he got to the hood. He leaned in closer to see what was wrong and then caught a glance and realized, fuck, started to turn away and everything whooshed into slow motion hot burning panic andnoise.The world was wrong. It was nearly silent and he blinked open his eyes and realized that he wasn't standing anymore. The lights were out or sparking or something, and he thought he saw Will, and then he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore.
Relationships: Will Graham/Greg Sanders
Series: Collations [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/144699
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Tiramisu

It had been one hell of a week.

Incipient nervous breakdown aside, Alana had spent most of it at his place talking him through the worst of it. She'd done it more by way of being a friend because Alana had never wanted to treat him as a therapist, and that was okay with Will. Maybe it didn't quite accomplish what Greg had wanted for him, but it was something, and he felt better. That was the main thing, right?

It made him feel steady enough to go in to work, to take his write up with him and double check a few references he'd made to the evidence. It still meant talking to Brass to apologize.

The fact that Brass apologized to him first was a little weird. Actually it was a lot weird because Jack never apologized for anything, at least not to Will.

"I should have been more careful. I shouldn't have let you get so closely involved," he said with a certain hint of chagrin. "It won't happen again."

"No?" It felt a little Twilight Zone zone, and Will scuffed fingers against the back of his neck before he gave a half nervous laugh. "I did fine with the other case, I just..." Sorting out the lies with evidence in Eddie's case had been easier.

"It won't." Brass's expression was resolute. "Sanders crawled my ass, which is pretty funny. Then he looked like a turtle that realized he'd stuck his head too far out of his shell."

It was hard not to smirk a little at that because he hadn't expected it. Well, maybe he did, but it was possible that Greg startled himself when he did it. "What can I do to help it not happen again, then?"

At least he seemed to think about that. "Give me a heads up before things reach the point where you think it'll be a problem. Don't go chasing crazies so close. You've got history, and I respect that. We all have things we have a hard time dealing with so we watch out for them. I don't send my guys out on cases that are difficult for them emotionally if I can help it." The _if I can help it_ part kind of sucked. Then again, it wasn't Jack tossing him to the wolves, either.

"Okay." The worst part of it had still been those two themselves, and he wasn't sure what part of him was more offended, the snatches of Chloe or the bland Hannibal voice in the back of his mind declaring them both rude. "I'll try to give you a heads up next time."

Brass cleared his throat. "I don't mean to get all up in your business. Just..." Yeah. He got it, and that little Hannibal voice lurking in his head could shut it.

"When it impacts my ability to work, it sort of becomes your business." He gave a one shouldered shrug. "And, I do appreciate it. So, you have a case you can put me on?"

"Got one that just came through with a horse on a plane." That was an interesting expression. "Seems like a bad idea all around if you ask me."

"Only the best for racing horses. Let me guess -- it kicked someone in the head? Or someone framed the horse for murder." He liked the sound of that, interesting, bizarre, not a serial. And he liked animals. Reaching to take the folder from Brass was easy.

"Could be either one. Got a dead woman who normally chaperoned the horse and a plane that looks like something out of a Roman orgy." He grinned. "You should take Catherine. I think she'd enjoy this one."

"Sounds good. Thanks." He enjoyed working with Catherine. She had a no-bullshit view of things and she was refreshing to deal with, like Bev had been. He let himself out of Brass's office, scanning the halls for her. Sure, she had shown up at his house making faces that said she was suspicious, but he liked her. It was just the way things were, and if he had a friend who cared enough to bully someone he started dating just to be sure they were all right, well. It would have been nice to have someone like that years ago. He'd just had someone bully him for dating Hannibal. Will remembered that with chagrin as he headed for the locker room.

On the way in, he nearly ran into Sara, face to face. He could tell that it startled her. "Oh. Hey." 

Will took a back step, looked away briefly. "I'm looking for Catherine."

He watched her glance around as if she expected to find her there. "Um, she was just here. I think she was going on a call about a horse?"

"Yeah, I'm on it with her." He lifted up the case file, looking past her.

"Huh." Her communication skills sorely lacked. "Check the supply room? I think she said something about refilling her kit."

"Right. Thanks." He almost wanted to make it a question, but he didn't. It was easier to wave and turn around, arrowing into the supply room, such as it was.

Catherine was standing by the shelves, restocking her print powder. "I'm guessing you're going with me on the horse call."

"I'm going with you on the horse call," Will confirmed, smiling as he leaned on the edge of the doorframe.

Things had mellowed out between her first visit to his place and now. "This one should be entertaining. Want to lay bets on how many of the plane's occupants are still there when we arrive?"

"Oh, the naive and the guilty ones." He grinned as he lifted up the file. "I'll drive if you want to read."

Both blonde brows rose. "You're in a good mood."

"My therapist has been living at my house for the past week, I'm not fired, and Greg didn't dump my ass when he should have. It's all good." He handed over the file, fishing for his keys.

That smile was gorgeous. Will thought she must have made a hell of a lot of money dancing. "You remember that I know how to hide your body if you hurt him, right?"

"Mmmhm, hence the therapist. Dr. Bloom. She's also been using this as a writing retreat." He clutched at the keys slowly, and watched Catherine slowly and carefully seal up her kit.

"Dr. Bloom, huh?" She hefted her kit and headed for the door. "So you can tell me all about her in the car."

It was a very long story that nested into other long stories, and he had no way of tidily explaining it. "You realize that one friend you should have relied on in the midst of a travesty and you didn't? That's Alana."

The way she laughed said a lot. "Yeah, I could have used one of those before I married Eddie." The ex-husband who had died badly. Will had been on the case, and it had been difficult, mostly because he didn't like the moments when his head mirrored a woman who could leave a kid in a flooding car.

"Probably wouldn't have helped you," Will drawled. "But it's nice to have someone who doesn't say that they told you so."

He pushed open the door in front of her, and followed the sound of the doors unlocking to the Denali. "Before I married Eddie, my mother said she was going to tell me _I told you so_ ahead of time because I'd never forget it." Catherine paused when she opened the back door to load her kit. "Can't say she was wrong about that."

"Sucks when that happens." Will went for the driver's side because that was the easiest thing to do. "How's Lindsey been?"

Catherine settled on the passenger side, shutting the door. "She can't sleep. I can't sleep. It's all kind of a mess, to be honest, but it's no surprise all things considered. Sweet of you to ask."

"Kids are resilient, but it's... rough." He still worried about Josh, constantly, endlessly, but it ended up pushed to the back of his mind because he was probably going to be mom's weird boyfriend number six, Will hoped.

"You're telling me. She's..." Catherine sighed. "I'm sure it will all come out in the wash." Or it would be an epic disaster, which was more along the lines of what Will expected.

"I'm sure it will. Somewhere in there." Or she'd grow up strange and separated from the rest of the world.

Either or.

She steeled herself visibly and pushed her seatbelt in with an audible click. "So. Let's get this show on the road."

* * *

It was nice to be back in the swing of things and not worrying too much about his boyfriend's slow breakdown since he'd pulled himself back together with a little help. No immediate worries, just the groove of mixing chemicals, looking at the results.

It was working out pretty well all things considered. It was a good day, he was working through a solid evidence log, and Will was back at work. Greg was pretty damned pleased with the world at the moment.

It had given him a hell of a scare seeing Will nearly unresponsive, wound up so tight that he was afraid to move, afraid of himself more than anything. Digging around, looking for the phone number for Dr. Bloom, and realizing that Will had sort of dragged everything from his last life forward with him instead of making a healthy cut and release had been worrisome, too. He still seemed to be in touch with everyone from his FBI days, at least a little. Well, almost everyone.

Jack Crawford was noticeably missing from the address book Greg had found. It was a little weird considering all of the other people he still knew, still contacted enough to have their information readily available to him. Will didn't talk about it much, but there was a marked reluctance there that Greg didn't plan on pushing.

Clearly that bridge was well burned. Greg couldn't immediately remember having wanted to burn a bridge with a colleague like that, not even bad ex-boyfriends, though those were more of a slow fade situation. One day they were there, the next day he just kind of wedged them away until they gave up and it was all copacetic.

It was a hell of a lot easier to distance himself until they reached that point. There was a lot to be said for that method because nobody had ever wanted to punch him in the face for it. He'd seen breakups where that was pretty much the next logical step in the relationship and he was glad he had managed to do better than that. It was a weird train of thought to be riding as he fussed through work, but at least he hadn't had a breakup half as bad as Lecter or a lot of their murder victims, and the DNA was always crucial for that.

For a while, he worked on, music playing in the background. The lab was on the move and that made him feel productive as hell. He saw Sara and Warrick pass in the hall somewhere along the way. Shift was almost over. Henry would be there to relieve him in about half an hour, and he was pretty sure that Alana had said something about going to stay in a hotel on the strip just to get a little of the local flavor. Greg was pretty sure that actually meant giving Will an opportunity to function on his own for a while, or maybe a little more than just function. Pushing a baby bird out of the mental health nest and seeing if it could fly with a side of yard tall margaritas. Will was probably going to do fine and they'd have a nice dinner. Or some nice breakfast. Or some nice sex. His mind wandered off to that for a bit until he realized that he could smell something.

What the hell was that? It smelled like burning plastic, which probably meant the hot plate under the fume hood. That couldn't be good. Sometimes it got left on, and that smell was definitely bad. It got stronger the closer he got to the hood. He leaned in closer to see what was wrong and then caught a glance and realized, fuck, started to turn away and everything whooshed into slow motion hot burning panic and _noise_.

The world was wrong. It was nearly silent and he blinked open his eyes and realized that he wasn't standing anymore. The lights were out or sparking or something, and he thought he saw Will, and then he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore.

* * *

The thing that made all hospitals the same wasn't the familiar layout, the long halls lined with rooms and waiting rooms and operating spaces, the sliding doors and gurneys, the antiseptic smell, bleach and cleaning fluids. It was the emotional charge that crossed cultures and time. Nurses would forever be a mix of attentive, bored, and over-worked because it wasn't a novelty to them any longer and the shine was long gone. Doctors would and had forever been arrogant, because the same arrogance that allowed them to play god didn't turn off when they left the operating room or the treatment space. Family members and friends were always waiting on a knife's edge between acceptance, hope, and despair, with any of those able to represent ill-intent.

His cell phone screen was too small to properly navigate google when he was that tired, trying to search for Greg's parents to get a phone number so he could tell them.

Sanders was too common a name, and there were a fair bunch of them in San Gabriel. He didn't really want to call Greg's grandparents, although it was going to come to that shortly if he couldn't pick one of them. Maybe he could just try calling them in turn until he thought he had the right ones, and he brought his bandaged hand up to his face for a moment, pressing against his sinuses.

Giant shard of glass through his hand was pretty high on the not giving a fuck scale given that Greg was in surgery being debrided and stabilized and mostly kept alive. So many opportunities for death there, and all he could think about were deep oxygenation chambers and fiery death. He finally found two Sanders in the same house with sort of the right names and started dialing the number.

For a couple of minutes, he thought no one would answer. It would suit him pretty well if they didn't because his head was stuck in a loop, and he should probably be glad that Alana was in town.

_"Hello?"_

"Hello, are you the mother of Greg Sanders?" He leaned into his phone, feeling tired and old and just. Drained.

 _"Who is this?"_ Yeah. He recognized that sound, and it was painful just to hear. Hell, it would be painful if he weren't half-crazy about Greg. _"What's wrong?"_

"This is CSI Graham with LVPD. Your son's been in an accident." Will rubbed at his temple, eyes closed.

_"Oh my god."_

Yeah, and he heard the phone hit the floor, could hear Greg's mother sounding... Well. It wasn't fun, in any case, and then the phone rattled again, and a man spoke. _"What happened?"_

"There was a chemical-related explosion in the lab. He's at Desert Palms right now and he's stable." If stable meant all of the things Will knew was going on, and he could hear Greg's mother crying. God.

 _"We're on our way."_ Simple as that, and the man hung up the phone.

He was willing to bet they'd make the four hour drive in close to three. Will looked at his phone for a moment and then closed it. Nothing to do but wait and not envision the worst, and that was a problem. He was stuck in his own head, and now all he could think of was Georgia Madchen. He couldn't let go of it. He could imagine the same thing happening to Greg, and it made him utterly sick to the core. He wanted to reach out for someone but he was terrible at it. There was no place of safety for his dearer thoughts, no separation between experience (good or bad) and imagination, no way to shake the taint of fear from ordinary bad occurrences.

His dad was long since gone, and he hadn't seen his mother since he was a kid. Greg had a family to call, and all Will could do was sit there and wait. Alana was in town but it was sort of nice not to bother her, wasn't it? She'd come all the way to Vegas for him and now she was finally getting to see the town, or at least a version of the town. Still, it was going to be on the news so it was probably a good idea to text her. His ears were still ringing a little, which was a good source for his headache and a better reason not to call. Simple, non-urgent. _'Greg was involved in the explosion at LVPD. Stable but critical condition, at Desert Palms.'_

There wasn't an immediate answer so he supposed that she must be somewhere she couldn't hear it or had left her phone in her hotel room. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Maybe he could coast a bit on fear and nerves and the general sick hollow feeling that he had. Maybe. He was pretty sure he could. Life liked to throw out curveballs, and he couldn't extrapolate out the aftermath of an explosion. It was chemical, and people happening to people was so much... Easier.

So much more permanent somehow.

Being lost in his head was nothing new. Falling asleep in hospitals wasn't, either, but at least he wasn't having any kind of hallucination this time. 

"Hey. Will?"

His eyes flew open and he jerked, the surprise of someone speaking to him nearly sending him up with fists clenched.

He held still, perched on the edge of the chair, and forced his shoulders to go back slowly. "Catherine."

She tilted her head to the side, looking at him for a long moment. "You look rough."

"Mmm. Last I heard Greg was in surgery, still. Debriding." The memory of skin sloughing off in his hand came and went.

"Oh, god." Yeah, that was a terrible expression. Catherine sat down beside him a little heavily. "The lab is a wreck. Warrick and Sara are working to try and figure out what happened."

"Whatever it was flung him through the window. His face was bloody." The EMTs hadn't let him stay with Greg although they'd told him where he was headed. "I called his parents."

She nodded, expression pinched. "I can only imagine how that's going to come out. Greg's mom wanted half a dozen kids and she only had the one. He has crazy stories about his family. Especially his Poppa Olaf."

He rubbed a hand through his hair, and closed his eyes tightly. "I think he needs them.” Most people did. The fact that he never had, well. That said less about him and more about his family or the lack thereof.

They sat there together for a while, quiet and waiting. There was something about hospitals that made things feel awkward, and he felt gawky enough without the additional pressure. He supposed that wasn't unusual. Catherine cleared her throat. "I'm gonna go check on things with the nurse's station. Can I get you anything?"

"No, but thanks." Coffee, good news, lies, he'd take any of the above just then. 

For the time being, he was just going to have to settle in and wait.

* * *

No news wasn't always good news, and Catherine had stopped pacing near the nurses' station at some point. She'd gone to get coffee and pillage the snack machines on the first floor instead.

He didn't have information on Greg or the right to have information on Greg, which made him glad he'd managed to get hold of Greg's parents. After all, who expected to be blown up at their job? At the very least, the nurses were still giving him sympathetic looks when they passed by him. Apparently they hadn't decided that he was a creepy stalker or anything, so there was that.

Sometimes he wondered at the things that made him feel grateful.

He hadn't talked, hadn't even tried to bother explaining himself. He'd said he'd come in from the lab, his coworker had been in the explosion, and that was that. No one needed to know that he and Greg were, well. Whatever the hell was going on. Dating. Sweet on him, sad and hopeful at the same time, and he'd just gotten blown through a window.

Will never should have tried dating him. Intellectually, he knew that it didn't make a difference. He knew it wasn't dating him that killed people, it was a mix of fucking horrible circumstances. Knowing and believing were, unfortunately, totally different things.

He scrubbed his hands through his hair and leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he tried to get his brain to calm down a little. It was magical fucking thinking was what it was, completely unrelated to reality. He wanted to wait, see Greg's parents, hand him off. Do something, and he buried his face in his hands because fuck. Fuck, just. He needed to pull himself together again.

"Hi, I'm sorry. We're looking for Greg Sanders?"

The voice caught his attention, made him jerk up his head. There were two people standing at the nurse's desk. They were tired and worried and seemed vaguely familiar. The man was tall, salt and pepper hair, but he had something of the look of Greg. The woman looked tear-stained, tired and shaky, but she had Greg's eyes, the shape of his mouth.

He shifted, stood up from the chair and watched the nurse thumb through her files. It gave him time to get closer to the Sanders. "Ma'am? I'm CSI Graham. I'm glad you both made it." And if he thought about it, he had a key to Greg's place if they needed someplace to stay, because they both looked exhausted.

The way they turned towards him made him feel guilty and a little sick. "You're the one who called." Yeah, those were Greg's eyes, all right, and the way they glistened, tears welling, was nearly too much.

"I uh. Did. Thought someone needed to tell you what happened. There was a chemical explosion of some kind. It's still under investigation." And he hadn't called in, hadn't tried to find out.

Crap.

He wasn't accustomed to people touching him. People didn't, only Greg's mom had his hand in hers, and Will didn't know what to do with that. "Thank you."

"Bare minimum I could do. Let me, uh, damn." He pulled his hand back, checking his pockets. "I've got his spare key in my car. Let me get it for you, I know that was a long drive."

Yeah, that was an interesting face. "In your car." His dad's voice was slow, thoughtful. "That would be nice. We'll be here, if that's all right."

He nodded, starting to turn away. "Maybe they'll let you in to see him." No point in lingering, and one nurse was giving him a funny eyebrow, so he turned to leave. It wasn't a suspicious look, but the air of _'oh you poor sad man'_ was pretty palpable.

Some things were nearly unbearable.

That clearing of the throat made him glance back, and they were still waiting. "Seems like you should come with us. Just at a guess."

His hand ached, randomly, incongruously, but he nodded. "Thanks. It's, uh, a long story that Greg can explain better." He would explain it better because he was going to be fine.

He was. He absolutely would, because he had to be.

Greg's mother sniffed and rubbed at a cheek. "I remember when he used to call us about long stories."

"It's probably not that much of a past tense." He was going to be naive and hopeful, waiting awkwardly for the nurse to give directions.

"He's just down the way," the nurse with the funny eyebrow informed them, and he pointed down the wide corridor. "Room 637. I'm guessing you're his parents." Yeah. That was pretty obvious, in any case.

Will nodded and followed behind Greg's parents. "He's been trying to study to get out into the field more."

"Oh, no." Crap. He hadn't so much forgotten that Greg said his mother was fiercely overprotective as sort of slid that thought to the side. He was tired and he felt old just thinking about it. "No, Greg wouldn't, he... would he?"

"Why not?" He kept his tone casual, because hey, apparently the lab wasn't so safe.

"He's grown, Audun. He can make his own decisions." This was clearly a discussion they might have had once or twice. "You know that."

"Suspect he'll do that regardless." Will halfway went to shove his hands into his pockets, except the bandage was in the way. "He's brilliant with the evidence that gets to DNA."

Greg's mother sniffled, and yeah. Maybe he should just write off anything like dealing with parents. He'd never been good at that kind of thing and he was afraid he'd set off Audun Sanders. "Of course he's brilliant." Her voice wobbled. "He was sixteen when he started college. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford."

"I know." And Greg kept his diplomas in not much of a place of honor. "Look, this isn't really the time to talk about this." Just a couple more doors down, and his own nerves were gearing up, startling to make him tense up even more.

The hospital doors were wide, and Will pushed Greg's door open with a firm touch, bandage standing out stark against the color of the pale wood, against the color of his skin. It was better to concentrate on that than to think too hard about the faint smell of smoke or the fact that Greg was pale and lying too still on that bed, bandaged up to the hilt, clean fresh gauze, the side of his face wrapped over carefully, and he edged in, letting Greg's parents have room. He was unconscious, drugged sleep, and that was for the best.

"Oh. Oh, no." No, and he didn't know how to cope with tears. It threw him and made him feel awkward, a little desperate.

"Honey, it's..."

He moved to the other side of the room, gave them a wide berth, and sat down slowly, watching Greg. Oddly, the hard realities of injuries were almost easier to deal with than the gaping fear. His head always did terrible things to him when his imagination had free reign, and this wasn't nearly so bad.

The crying, on the other hand, was. It was quiet, not wild sobbing, and fuck. Just. Fuck.

He leaned back in the chair, set his hands on his knees, and watched Greg breathe. "He'll heal." Barring infection, barring a lot of terrible possibilities. It wasn't as bad as Will had feared.

It wasn't Georgia Madchen.

He sat there for a while and watched Greg, letting the sounds of his parents wash over him. Just the sight of his chest rising and falling was a relief, made his own tension loosen, made it easier to breathe. It was going to be shitty, but Will wasn't going anywhere. He shifted, snagged the chart at the end of the bed to scan it. The lock on it was flimsy, and a little fiddling with his thumb nail got everything open, giving him access to the notes. The words flowed together, and Will was pretty sure that was more a shock reaction than it was anything else. He didn't want Greg to be hurt, he didn't want the lab to be in a state of utter disaster. He just wanted things to come back together again. He wanted everything to be fine and safe, a risk-free haven like he hadn't had in a long time, and it was selfish to want Greg back whole and okay for that reason, but he wanted it regardless. He wanted Greg okay, and allowed his eyes to skim the notes again -- blood pressure recordings, notes, third degree burns, orbital bone.

His back was going to be the worst of it. Will could see all of the steps between here and Greg being well. They were perfectly realized, nearly crystal in their clarity. It wasn't Greg lying there completely knocked out, and that was something he wanted. Better yet, he'd like for Greg's mother to stop crying. That would help a lot.

"Can I get you tissues, or...?" He could work backwards, too, later, when he had time, what he'd seen, what the evidence told him, what the lab looked like in his mind's eye because that was the hazard of a perfect memory.

Greg's father cleared his throat. "Honey, why don't you step into the bathroom for a minute. Wash your face." He gave Will a wan smile as Audun turned to do just that. "The offer is nice, but I'm pretty sure a tissue's not gonna be quite enough. So."

He looked up, vaguely in the direction of Greg's father's face, enough to pull together the suggestion of an expression and a firmer sense of family resemblance. "Sorry, I'm miserably bad with people." Molly had forgiven him for it, and Greg had as well, repeatedly, and that was good given that he was never going to become a paragon of social conformity. "His eye's okay. The glass nicked the orbital bone, but it missed the actual eye."

That laugh was ragged. "Well. That's good to know. God." God, and then he shook his head and reached out, touched Greg's hair, rubbed a thumb lightly against the edge of a bandage. "We don't see him as much as we'd like."

Will closed the folder, pressed the lock shut again. "These aren't the best circumstances."

"No. No, they aren't." Definitely weren't, but he squared his shoulders and turned towards Will. "I'm Gunnar. It's nice to meet you, despite everything."

"Will." He offered his hand, halfway standing up because he'd picked up enough manners here and there to function. "Greg talks about you both quite a bit."

"It would be nice if he talked about you." It wasn't accusatory or suspicious, more of a wry observation. "Sometimes I think he believes he's an adult."

Will smiled a little as he sat back down, felt the edges of his eyes crinkle a little. "Yeah. well. I'm not much to talk about."

That snort was familiar, too. It made his mouth twitch a little at the edges, curving upwards against his will. "If you weren't much to talk about, trust me. He would have already talked about you."

"It's complicated." Will was complicated, sometimes unnecessarily so, and there was probably, possibly, medication for that.

Gunnar nodded. "That sounds like Greg. We didn't hear about his prom date until he walked downstairs in a tux. That was quite the crush."

It was hard not to smile when he looked over at Greg again. "I bet it was. Greg is..." Smart, funny, stable in unexpected ways, and easy. It was just easy and right, and there was no question that he was going to have to research treatment on third degree burns and second, and just. Help.

"Greg is Greg." Yeah. Yeah, that was about right, and that was entirely true. "His mother's a little...." Will knew.

"I can't blame anyone for wanting to protect their family. The world is rough on the people we love." Understatement of the year. 

"Sounds like the voice of experience." Gunnar shifted and knocked on the bathroom door. "Honey?"

Will closed his eyes, and settled back into the chair, feeling for Greg's hand. Just the touch of their fingers made him feel better, and he let out a shaky sigh of relief. It was better, and he could hear Greg's parents talking, but he didn't concentrate on it. Not really.

It was easier to let everything slide away and revel in the fact that Greg wasn't a corpse, that his fingers were still attached and warm to the touch.

Greg was still alive. He'd lived through it, and Will was pretty sure that was a sign that things were getting better.

He'd take that for what it was.


End file.
